Staying Together
by Write-To-You
Summary: Sort of a fix-it for The Austere Academy (because watching A Series of Unfortunate Events on television just makes me FEEL THiNGS OKAY)


**Author's Note: Just want to preface. I love the ASOUE books. Like** ** _loooooooove_** **them. BUT! I didn't ship this couple until I saw the Netflix show. IF YOU LIKE THE BOOKS LEGIT WATCH IT IT IS SOOOO GOOOOOD AND SO TRUE TO THE BOOKS!**

Jacquelyn Scieszka was not someone who got into the field very often. She was basically retired- most of them at VFD were, save for the odd mission to relocate the sugar bowl or save someone from an untimely death. After the schism, things had simply gotten too complicated and confusing. Most members of VFD had erased all records of them being included in a secret society, save for the unremovable tattoo on their ankle.

That was before the Baudelaire parents died, and the Baudelaire children were left as orphans running from the wicked Count Olaf. That was around when Jacquelyn got re-involved with the center of VFD, became Mr. Poe's assistant, and started making quite a few secret calls underneath her desk.

It seemed that she just couldn't find good help these days. Larry had lost the very important book that she had asked him to deliver to Violet, Klaus and Sunny, and also been locked in a freezer. Jaques Snicket had been sent to rescue him, and while he had succeeded in that he hadn't been able to help the Baudelaires.

Well, they _do_ say that if you want something done you have to do it yourself.

So Jacquelyn took a leave of absence, packed her bags, and headed to her old school. It had been a long time since she had been at Prufrock Preparatory. She still remembered her old days on the boys football team, which she muscled her way into. She still remembered the terrible food, and sneaking into the library after hours to read books with her best friend, R. She even remembered meeting Count Olaf for the first time, though back then they hadn't called him that.

Unlike Larry, Jacquelyn was able to make it into the school without much trouble. There was a small, annoying child with curly ringlets that made her jaw clench and her eyes roll, but other than that there hadn't been any problems. She found the orphan shack, and the Baudelaires, and that was that.

But then it wasn't.

"We can't leave without the Quagmires," Klaus Baudelaire said firmly, his glasses sliding down his nose. "As much as it is a tremendous relief to have someone finally here to answer our questions and take us to a safe place, the Quagmires deserve that as much as we do."

Violet nodded her head. "I agree with Klaus," she seconded. "The Quagmires were the only people who made us feel welcome. They don't deserve to be stuck here at Prufrock. And besides, they need answers just like we do. They're parents worked with the same... well, _whatever_ they worked for as ours did."

Jacquelyn sighed and pursed her lips. "I remember the Quagmires," she said softly. "Or, their parents, at least. Good people. Are all three triplets here?"

" _Mica_ ," Sunny said sadly.

"What my sister means is that one of their siblings, Quigley, died in the fire along with his parents," Violet explained, shoulders slumping. "Just Duncan and Isadora are left."

"Tragedy certainly knows how to follow a choice few people," Jacquelyn replied, shaking her head.

Klaus refused to have the subject changes. "Please," he begged. "We need to bring them with us. We promised them if either of us ever escaped we would take the others with us. That's what friends do."

Violet nodded her agreement.

Jacquelyn sighed. "Fine," she agreed. "Klaus, go and retrieve them. If you're not back within a half-hour we're going to come looking for you. That would seriously hinder our attempt at an escape, so _please_ try not to have that happen."

Klaus shot to his feet. "I'll be as quick as I can," he assured Jaqueline, and rushed out of the Orphan Shack.

He ran across the lawn and towards the entrance of Prufrock Preparatory school, only to be stopped at the door at his least favorite person (besides Count Olaf, anyway).

"Where are you running to, Cakesniffer?" Carmelita asked snottily. "Going to see your little girlfriend?"

"Please move, Carmelita," Klaus said, as politely as he could. "I need to get inside the school and to the broom cupboard as soon as possible."

"So you _are_ going to see the little poem-writing Cakesniffer," Carmelita scoffed, before starting to sing. "Two little Cakesniffers sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G-"

"Shut up, Carmelita!" Klaus yelled. He was shocked at himself. Never before in his life had he told someone to shut up. "Isadora is _not_ a Cakesniffer, whatever that even means."

Carmelita's eyes widened at his sudden angry tone, and she didn't make a move to stop him as he pushed past her and hurried for the broom cupboard. In fact, she seemed a bit impressed by his backbone.

He managed to get to the Quagmires room without any further interruptions, and he quickly ran to the door and began to knock.

Isadora pocked her head out. Her hair was down and a little messy, and she wasn't in her uniform anymore. Basically, she looked beautiful, and Klaus momentarily forgot why he was there.

"Klaus?" Isadora asked, looking confused. "What are you doing here so late?"

"I'm sorry for my untimely arrival," Klaus said quickly. "Is Duncan there?"

"Oh." Isadora looked a little disappointed. "You wanted to see Duncan?"

"I wanted to see you," Klaus corrected, even faster, then turned red. "I mean, both of you. I need you two to come with me."

Isadora opened the door wider and Duncan stepped up behind her. "Hello, Klaus," he greeted formally, the way he always did. "Can we do anything for you?"

"We have to go," Klaus said, speaking as quickly as possible. He knew he didn't have much time left before Jacquelyn came looking for him and possibly attracted the attention of the entire school. "We're getting out of here."

Isadora's eyes widened. "Getting out of here? You mean out of Prufrock Preparatory School?"

"But where would we go?" Duncan asked.

"Someone who knew our parents is here," Klaus explained hurriedly. "Her name is Jaqueline. She came to get us out and find us somewhere safe to go, but we convinced her to let us take you two as well. But we need to hurry. She gave me half of an hour to come and get you so we need to go before she comes looking for me."

Duncan and Isadora's eyes widened. "Okay," Isadora breathed. "Okay, okay, just let me get my journal and some clothes and a hair-tie."

Klaus nodded, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as Duncan and Isadora rushed back inside and grabbed their things. Then the three of them took off through the empty corridors of the school, back to the Orphan Shack.

As they ran, Isadora reached out and squeezed Klaus' hand. "We're really doing it," she murmured happily. "We're going to get out of here."

Cheeks red and fingers tingling, Klaus nodded breathlessly.

Then they rounded a corner, and ran smack into Klaus' worst nightmare.

Coach Genghis, known terrifyingly as Count Olaf.

"Oh ho ho," Olaf chuckled. His voice cracked, and he cleared it, trying again. "Oh, ho _ho_!"

"Out of the way, Olaf," Duncan said, his hands shaking but his voice firm. "We have somewhere to be."

"Yes, yes, go, shoo," Olaf said, rolling his eyes. The three orphans eyed each other in confusion. He was just letting them go?

But when they tried to skirt around him and keep running, Olaf caught at Klaus' shoulder. "I wasn't talking to you," he growled. "Where are the other two brats?"

"Violet and Sunny aren't here," Klaus said bravely. "And you aren't going to find them."

Quickly, he let go of Isadora's hand and looked both her and Duncan straight in the eyes. " _Go_ ," he urged. "I'll catch up, I promise."

Count Olaf snorted. " _Doubtful_ ," he muttered, grabbing Klaus' arm in a vice-grip and starting to drag him in the opposite direction from the Orphan Shack. "You and your _sisters_ are _late_ for your S.O.R.E. training, which means that we go until breakfast instead of dawn today. I'd like to see you try and keep your eyes open during class."

Duncan and Isadora exchanged desperate looks. "Go!" Klaus urged. "Please."

Duncan glanced over his shoulder, toward the Orphan Shack and freedom, but Isadora's eyes remained locked on Klaus. "I'm not leaving you," she said. "Our parents left, and so did Quigley, but they weren't given a choice. No one who has left you was given a choice. I have a choice, and I'm _not_ leaving."

Klaus blinked. Duncan blinked. Count Olaf blinked.

"Well, that was a nice speech," Olaf said finally, shrugging and continuing to drag Klaus toward the sports field. "I suppose that if you _really_ want to you can come along and keep Klaus company while he runs in circles all night."

"Isadora..." Duncan started.

"Go, Duncan," Isadora whispered. "Get Violet and Sunny. Tell Jacquelyn what happened. She might be able to help."

Duncan nodded, hugging his sister tightly. "Be careful," he told her seriously.

She nodded back. "I will."

Then Isadora turned and raced after Klaus.

Count Olaf looked surprised when she appeared beside them. "Huh," he muttered. "You're _actually_ not leaving him."

"Isadora, you have to go," Klaus repeated. "I can't let you loose your chance just because of me."

Isadora shook her head. She glared at Count Olaf, daring him to argue with her presence, but he just shrugged and continued to drag Klaus along.

They had run about three laps, unsuccessfully trying to communicate under the watchful eye of Count Olaf the entire time, when there was the sound of running footsteps.

"Oh, what _now_?" Olaf groaned, getting to his feet and blowing his whistle. "Keep running, Orphans!"

Violet, Sunny and Duncan ran into the sports field lights, and Olaf frowned. "Do you people actually _want_ to run laps for hours? Goodness. Orphans are weird."

Instead of answering, Violet, Sunny and Duncan stopped running, making way for another figure.

"Yes, they are, aren't they?" Jacquelyn responded. "Most people would eagerly grasp at the opportunity to escape Prufrock Preparatory, but these three made certain that no one was being left behind."

Count Olaf squinted. "Jaqueline? Is that you? It's been _years_."

"I know," Jacquelyn deadpanned. "It's been lovely."

Olaf frowned, trying to figure out what that meant. "Is that- was that- was that an insult? I honestly can't tell. It was just that bad."

Jacquelyn rolled her eyes, and then pulled a sword out of what seemed to be nowhere. "Let's just get this over with."

She charged at Count Olaf. He pulled out a gun.

"No!" Violet yelled, leaping forward. "Jaqueline, watch out!"

Jacquelyn pulled up short. "You wouldn't _dare_ ," she murmured, glaring at Count Olaf.

"You wouldn't dare," Olaf echoed in a mimicking voice. "Really? I think that I _would_."

He pulled the trigger. Isadora screamed. Klaus shut his eyes. Sunny buried her head in Violet's lap.

Silence.

Slowly, the five orphans looked up. Jacquelyn had her eyebrows raised, and Count Olaf was staring in confusion at his gun.

"You honestly think I wouldn't have thought about your gun?" Jacquelyn asked, unimpressed. "I think of _everything_."

"How?" Count Olaf spluttered as Jacquelyn came forward, sword raised high. "How on _Earth_ did you manage to get ahold of my gun? You literally _just got here_."

"Or did I?"

"Yes, you did! I saw you come through that entrance!"

Jacquelyn had now reached Olaf and was holding the tip of her sword to his chest. The kids winced and watched through half-closed eyes, wondering if they were about to witness a murder.

Instead, Jacquelyn used the tip of her sword and cut Count Olaf's turban straight down the middle. The cloth unravelled as it fell off of his head, revealing his one long eyebrow.

Jacquelyn smirked at the shocked look on his face, and then elbowed him in the gut. While he bent over, gasping, she turned back to the children. "We should probably get going."

Nodding in a distracted, shocked way, the Baudelaire and the Quagmires hurried after her, past the still gasping "Coach Genghis", the glowing, luminescent circle on the grass, the front door of Prufrock Preparatory, a shock Carmelita Spatz, and toward the Orphan Shack.

Right before they reached the Baudelaires temporary home, Jacquelyn turned. "What?" she asked as the orphans looked around in confusion. "You thought we were going to somehow escape in a tin shack?"

"No, I suppose not," Duncan responded. "Where are we going?"

"Follow me." Jacquelyn starting striding towards the line of scraggly trees at the edge of Prufrock Preparatory's grounds. Jacquelyn reached one tree and knocked, three times in a row.

Klaus and Isadora exchanged glances. "Here I thought we had escaped. But this might not be all that great," Isadora rhymed, creating a couplet on the spot. She wrinkled her nose. "Not my best."

Klaus grinned. "I liked it. I like all of them."

Violet glanced over, raised her eyebrows, and exchanged significant looks with Duncan. He fought a grin.

Jacquelyn pulled a face and rapped three more times. "I honestly don't know what's taking them so long," she mumbled.

"Uh... excuse me," Violet spoke up politely. "Who exactly are we waiting for?"

Jacquelyn ignored the question, starting to back away from the tree. "Stand back, everyone," she said, grinning widely.

Exchanging looks, the kids did as they were told. Then, all at once, a giant drawbridge-like door came crashing down from the side of the tree. It revealed a set of dirty steps into what seemed like an endless black space.

Isadora's eyes suddenly widened. She reached out, grabbing Duncan and Klaus' arms. "Look!"

They looked. There, on the inside of the trapdoor, was a carved symbol of an eye. And in it, much clearer that on Count Olaf's ankle, the letters V.F.D.

Violet let out a small gasp. " _Acoop!_ " Sunny cried, which meant something along the lines of: "It's the tattoo we've seen on Count Olaf's ankle! Is Jacquelyn working with him?"

"Don't fear, children!" Jacquelyn exclaimed, noticing their wide-eyes and terrified faces. "Not all members of VFD are as horrific and loathsome as Count Olaf and his cronies."

"That is true indeed!" a deep voice cried. The kids jumped at the new voice, but soon it was matched to a tall man striding out of the dark hide-space. "Hello, children. My name is Jaques Snicket. It's a pleasure to see you all again. And a pleasure to meet you, Sunny."

"Meet us... again?" Violet repeated. "I'm sorry; I'm afraid we don't understand. We've never seen you before. Or-" she broke off and glanced at the Quagmires. "I never have."

Duncan and Isadora shook their heads. "We haven't, either," Duncan agreed.

"Ah, you were very young," Jaques said with a grin. "Violet... you couldn't have been any more then 4. And Duncan, Isadora and Klaus... mmm... 2? Yes, I think you would have been 2 then."

"You knew our parents," Klaus murmured wonderingly. "You're apart of V.F.D., too!"

"Ah, he catches on fast," Jaques laughed, ruffling Klaus' hair. "Just like his father."

"And his mother," Jacquelyn added quickly. "In fact, these children are quite a bit like their parents. But they _are_ still children, and they need a home. I trust that you have all the arrangements taken care of?"

"Of course," Jaques said, winking at Jacquelyn. "It's me."

She rolled her eyes. "I won't put too much faith in that answer, then."

Feigning hurt, Jaques shook his head at her and grandly gestured to the orphans. "Watch your step on the way down, children," he instructed. "That last step really drops off. Gets me every time."

Jacquelyn went first, shining a flashlight she pulled from her pocket into the dark, dusty hide-space. The five kids followed her, looking around at each other for support. Violet picked up Sunny so she wouldn't have to walk down the steps, and they set off down the underground corridor.

It had been about fifteen minutes before they saw the first sign of non-flashlight light. It was streaming in a rectangle far down in the corridor.

A door.

"Ah, look, we've nearly made it," Jaques said. He had taken up the rear, and kept stepping on Isadora's heels, though she was too polite to tell him that. "Just keep walking, kids. We're almost there."

"Almost _where_?" Klaus asked, frustrated. "We've been walking for fifteen minutes and you've told us nothing."

"Yes, I have," Jaques answered. "I told you we're almost there."

Klaus clenched his teeth against a groan of annoyance. Isadora reached out and took his hand. "We're getting out of here," she said softly. "That's all that matters."

Sighing, Klaus nodded his agreement. They kept walking.

Jacquelyn, who was in front, reached the door first. Violet glimpsed the tell-tale V.F.D. mark carved in the wood before she pulled it out. It creaked, loudly, and revealed another set of stairs.

These steps were cleaner, and they looked more used then the others. Glancing behind him, Klaus wondered if there had been other branching tunnels that they had missed walking by in the dark. For all they knew, this was an entire underground system of passageways, used by V.F.D. to get around.

After the stairs, the five were met by a large, open space. For a moment it was too bright to see clearly, but after they blinked a few times, they could make out an helicopter resting on a landing pad.

Duncan's eyes grew wide. "Are we going to ride in that?" he gaped.

"Of course," Jacquelyn shrugged. "How do you think we got here so fast?"

The kids exchanged looks. Obviously, they had a very different definition of "fast" then Jaques and Jacquelyn.

"Follow me!" Jaques cried, waving them forward. Almost immediately after he spoke, the giant blades on the helicopter began to spin. Hair blowing every-which-way, Violet held Sunny closer to her chest so that the sound wouldn't be so loud for her young, sensitive ears.

Jacquelyn boarded the helicopter first, and, after Jaques helped them all up, handed each of them a pair of headphones. "You'll have to hold Sunny's for her!" she yelled over the noise of the wind and motor. "I couldn't find a pair that small."

Violet nodded, and momentarily passed Sunny to Klaus so that she could put on her own headphones before taking care of her little sister.

The two sets of siblings followed Jacquelyn inside of the helicopter, and sat down on the surprisingly posh leather seats. Duncan was across from Violet and Sunny, who was next to Klaus, who was across from Isadora. All five orphans sat for a very long moment and simply looked at each other.

Then Jaques came on board, sat down in the co-pilot's chair (Jacquelyn was flying the helicopter of course- she would never trust Jaques with such an important and fatal-if-done-recklessly job), and the entire machine began to lift slowly off the ground.

After a couple of seconds, curiosity got stronger then exhaustion, and Klaus and Isadora opened up the helicopter window's sun-shade. Light streamed across their laps, and they all peered out at the landscape below them.

"It's beautiful..." Isadora breathed. "That's enough to inspire couplets for days."

Violet and Klaus, who had flown before, were a little less awed by the sight, but their gazes still stayed glued to the tiny window. Violet lifted Sunny up so that she could see, making sure her headphones were still in place. It truly was a beautiful sight, even with the hulking, grey, moldy building of Prufrock Preparatory in the distance.

"I can't believe we made it out," Klaus breathed, exchanging smiles with his sisters and best friends. "We're actually safe from Count Olaf's clutches."

"It's incredible," Violet agreed. "Doesn't seem real, to be honest."

Duncan pinched himself, winced, then laughed. "It's real."

They smiled at each other, and Sunny rolled her eyes. " _Eet_ ," she mumbled, which meant something along the lines off: "I feel a bit like a fifth wheel right now."

"So what are we going to do?" Klaus spoke up. "When we land?"

"No matter what, we stay together," Isadora replied firmly. "All five of us. We're safer, and stronger, together."

"I agree," Duncan said. He put his hand in the middle, smiling. "Together?"

The other four kids put their hands in, too. "Together," they echoed, nodding.

The helicopter eventually touched down, and the Baudelaires and Quagmires were introduced to their new guardian. He was a large, rather grim man with a sorrowful face but a way with words, and they had a feeling they would be safe with him.

He also knew their parents, though he didn't like to talk much about the Baudelaires mom. It seemed to bring up some painful memories for him, an opinion the Baudelaires easily shared.

All in all, life was pretty nice living with Lemony Snicket. And, best of all, Klaus, Violet, Sunny, Duncan and Isadora were together.

 **Author's Note: THAT ENDING WAS CRINGE IN A PAGES DOCUMENT I'M SOOOO SORRRRYYYYY...**

 **I hope you enjoyed the rest, though! I really liked writing this story; it was a lot of fun. And living with Lemony Snicket! Literally my dream :D**


End file.
